A unified syntactic account of Mandarin subject nominals
Yi-Hsien Liu · University of Southern California Digital Library · 2013
This dissertation investigates the Mandarin Chinese nominals [Numeral-Classifier-(de)-Noun] and their functions as preverbal and post-verbal subjects and topics. It starts with a close analysis of the internal structure of the Chinese nominals. I propose a set of syntactic structures that capture the behaviors and distinctions between the canonical [Num(eral)-Cl(assifier)-N(oun)] and the non-canonical [Num(eral)-Cl(assifier)-de-N(oun)] expressions. Upon close examinations of the extensive data, Chapter 2 concludes that the canonical [Num-Cl-N] has a right-branching structure (Tang 1990, 2005